The Underdevelopment of Nigeria and Africa: The Mo’ Ibrahim Paradigm

Abstract

The paper evaluated the rationale why Nigeria and other African states have remained underdeveloped in the presence of huge natural resource endowment, when less endowed States have progressed considerably on the development scale. It adopted the MO Ibrahim leadership and development indices as a measure of human progress and the UNDP reports as the barometer of measurement. The focus was on Nigeria with analytical implication for other African states. Richard Joseph’s ‘prebendal and patrimonial’ framework was used as the analytical perspective. The study revealed that contrary to the alibi that the global capitalism accounted for the slow pace of development in Nigeria and other African states, that ‘Asian Tigers’ with no natural endowment waded through this same international economic order to attain their current level of development. The absence of ‘benevolent leadership, Prebendal and patrimonial politics were identified as part of the causal factors for the lack of development, even where Nigeria and other African state tended to be ’developmental states’. It recommended the benevolent and patriotic dictatorial leadership for Nigeria and African states as a panacea to Prebendalism and the pursuit of the processes of Sustainable Development for Nigeria and Africa. It upheld that the prize monetary reward from the MO Ibrahim foundation should serve as enough incentive for good governance in Africa. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n2s1p70